Summary: Shamma Jogi is a young women who decided to fight for a better life. In search of a job and an education, she arrived at Barefoot College (http://www.barefootcollege.org). Her husband, a truck driver, agrees with her decision to live on campus. He visits her there on his days off. Shamma raises her young son as a working woman.

The main problem for our poverty is water. We all work as farmers and without rain there's no harvest and no money. Nobody of my family or in-laws is educated. I took the decision to go a few years to nightschool, as I felt the need to learn and I was doing fieldwork during daytime.
We need to feed our children. It's important to give them a decent future with a good education. That's why I decided to come to Barefoot, because of the jobs.
My husband is a truckdriver. He supports me completely in my decision to work. He's happy that I feel good in this community. The money I earn helps us for paying our expenses.
Once I got married I worked in the house. The people from Barefoot came to the villages to talk about their program. They spoke about solar lighting and handicrafts and education. My in-laws asked if they could teach me solar lighting so that I could return electricity to the village as we don't have light there. My in-laws were very supportive, as they understood Barefoot was an interesting place for learning.
I was supposed to learn how to make lights and later go back home. My in-laws wanted me take care of the house and its lighting and nothing else. But I told them that I wanted to learn more and work like the other women here. If men can work outside, then why not women.
I assured them if I would face any problems I would come back home. In the beginning they used to see me very tired, my eyes were irritated and my hands got burnt. My family asked me to quit but I knew that I had to face these physical inconveniences if I wanted to change my situation. The last thing I needed was to go back to the village and cut wood and cook on stoves.
Finally my family understood I was enjoying and then they co-operated and now everything is fine.

I started the training at Barefoot in the solar photovoltaic section. After 3 months a German engineer, Schaeffler, turned up with a technique for building solar cookers. Guruji, in charge of the Barefoot solar program, encouraged all interested men and women to follow this new training. There were also people from Afghanistan and Ethiopia and even Korea to follow the training. In the beginning I was reticent about my participation as I thought welding and construction was nothing for me. I considered it too difficult for a girl. But they convinced me that women can do what men can do, and if I wanted to change my life I should give it a try.
Barefoot College didn't promise me an absolute security. They only offered me the possibility to learn. After that it's up to yourself. If you are good, you can get a paid job and even go for more trainings. The monthly fee offers a greater financial freedom for my family. There was also the possibility to live on the campus and to raise my kid inside an interesting community. A lot of different people live and work here, and there is no discrimination of caste or sex. Men and women work on an equal level, and I have much more freedom than I would have in the village. I also learn a lot from all foreigners I meet here.
I'm very happy with the fact that I persisted to go for this change, my actual situation makes me feel special.
I have my own bankaccount and I earn around 2200 rupees (50€) a month. More than that I don't need. I teach people from other countries now, and I love that. We communicate by bodylanguage and learn with hands-on actions, as we don't speak each others' language. I teach them how to use the solar cookers, but also how to make them from scratch. A small 2,5 suare meters cooker takes up to a month to make, with 2 people.
From time to time I follow a workshop to improve the cooker-technology, to adapt it in a better way to our proper needs.
We even started our independent solar cooker company for production. The cookers are mostly bought by other organisations for use in community kitchens.

I would love that more women come to the workshop and learn about this technology and also how to work with it. One day resources as gas and fuel and kerosene will run out but sunlight never will. The one-time investment is rather expensive, but afterwards one can make profit out of it. We don't waste natural resources as wood. Solar cookers also improve our lives in a healthier way. Less lung diseases as asthma, less unusefull time-consuming daily activities as making and watching fire.
I would like to continue learning about these alternative possibilities that makes life easier. I'm not bound to go somewhere else, as I'm perfectly happy here in the community. And the campus offers the possibilities to learn more as regularly new people are visiting and new ideas are tested out. This specific mix of people offers a fertile cultural basis for my kid to grow up and to assure him a prosperious future. What else do I need?
Barefoot College
Rajasthan
Technology is a valuable input for social transformation, but the most important force is human agency and creativity: the microlevel initiatives and everyday activities of real human beings.
In the context of the Politics of Change project, I had interviewed Shamma Jogi (21, solar engineer) with the aid of a questionnaire (http://pad.ma/TF). Her responses are below:

Shamma Jogi :
I decided to come to Barefoot because of the jobs. I started the training at Barefoot in the solar photovoltaic section. There were also people from Afghanistan and Ethiopia and even Korea to follow the training. In the beginning I was reticent about my participation as I thought welding and construction was nothing for me, I considered it too difficult for a girl. But they convinced me that women can what men can do.
Barefoot College didn't promise me an absolute security. They only offered me the possibility to learn. After that it's up to yourself. If you are good, you can get a paid job and even go for more trainings. The monthly fee offers a greater financial freedom for my family. There was also the possibility to live on the campus and to raise my child inside an interesting community. A lot of different people live and work here, and there is no discrimination of caste or sex. Men and women work on an equal level, and I have much more freedom than I would have in the village. I also learn a lot from all foreigners I meet here.
I'm very happy I'm doing this, it makes me feel special.
From time to time I follow a workshop to improve the cooker-technology, to adapt it in a better way to our proper needs.
We even started our independent solar cooker company for production.

One day, resources like gas, petrol and kerosene will run out but sunlight never will. The initial investment is rather expensive, but afterwards one can make profit. We don't waste natural resources as wood. Solar cookers also improve our lives in a healthier way, with less lung diseases as asthma, less time-consuming daily activities as making a fire.
I would like to continue learning about these alternative possibilities that makes life easier. I'm not bound to go somewhere else, as I'm perfectly happy here in the community. And the campus offers the possibilities to learn more as regularly new people are visiting and new ideas are tested out. This specific mix of people offers a fertile cultural basis for my kid to grow up and to assure him a prosperous future. What more do I need?
Tilonia
cooperative
empwerment
green energy
self-supporting
solar cookers
women
women empowerment

The main problem for our poverty is water.
We all work as farmers and without rain there's no harvest and no money.
Nobody of my family or in-laws is educated.
I took the decision to go a few years to nightschool.
I felt the need to learn and I was doing fieldwork during daytime.
We need to feed our children.
It's important to give them a decent future based on a good education.
That's why we decided to come to Barefoot College. Because of the jobs.

My husband is a truckdriver.
He supports me completely in my decision to work.
He's happy that I feel good in this community.
The money I earn helps us for paying our expenses.

Once I got married I worked in the house.
The people from Barefoot came to the villages to talk about their program.
They spoke about solar lighting and handicrafts and education.
My in-laws asked if they could teach me solar lighting.
They wanted me to bring electricity to the village.
My in-laws understood that Barefoot was an interesting place for learning.
So they were very supportive when I left for the 6-month training.

After the training I was supposed to return to take care of the house again.
I told my in-laws that I wanted to stay and learn more.
If men can work outside the house, then why not women?
I assured them I would come back if I faced too many problems.
In the beginning I was very tired.
My eyes were irritated and my hands got burned from welding.
My family asked me to quit.
But I had to get over these physical inconveniences.
I wanted to change my situation and the last thing I needed was return to my previous situation.

I started at Barefoot in the solar photovoltaic section.
After 3 months of training a German engineer came up with the technique for building solar cookers.
All interested men and women were encouraged to follow this new training.
There were people from all over India and even from Afghanistan and Korea.
In the beginning I felt doubt about my participation.
I thought welding and constructing was nothing for me.
I considered it too difficult for a girl.
But if men can, than why not women? So I gave it a try.

Barefoot College didn't promise us an absolute security.
Instead they offered us the possibility to learn.
After that it's up to yourself.
If you are good you can get a paid job or go for more trainings.
The monthly fee offers a greater financial freedom for my family.
There was also the possibility to live on the campus.
And to raise my kid surrounded by an interesting community.
A lot of different people live and work here.
There is no discrimination of caste or sex.
I have much more freedom than I would have in the village.
And I learn a lot from all the foreigners I meet here.
I'm happy I persisted to go for this change, it makes me feel special.

I have my own bankaccount and I earn around 2200 rupees (50€) a month.
More I don't need.

I teach people from other countries now and I love that.

We communicate by sign language and learn with hands-on actions.
I teach them how to use the solar cooker and how to build them from scratch.

From time to time I follow an additional workshop.
To improve the technology and to adapt it to our proper needs.
We even started our independent solar cooker company for production.
The cookers are mostly bought by other organisations for use in community kitchens.

I would love that more women come to the workshops.
And that they all learn about this technology and how to work with it.
One day resources as fuel and kerosene will run out but sunlight never will.
The equipment investment is rather high but over the years one can make profit out of it.

Solar cookers also improve our lives in an healthier way.
Less lung diseases and asthma.
Less unuseful time-consuming daily activities as making fire.
And less spilling of natural resources as wood.

I would like to continue learning about these alternative possibilities.
But I'm not bound to go somewhere else, I'm perfectly happy here.
Regularly new ideas are tested out on the campus by visitors.

And the mix of people here offers a fertile basis for my kid to grow up.
This way I can assure him a prosperous future.
What else do I need?